Improving the care of patients with cancer is a major goal of the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center. In service of this mission, the Center has a long-standing commitment to develop cancer education opportunities for a wide range of current and future health care providers. The University of Pennsylvania offers a well integrated educational experience that extends across the four year of medical school and draws upon the multiple disciplines involved in cancer research and clinical care. Although our medical students are broadly trained in oncology, the need exists for focused, in-depth experiences in clinical and basic science research for selected students. Increasingly, young physicians forsake academic pursuits in favor of clinical practice. Two important factors during the training of physicians contribute to this trend-inadequate protected time for a supervised research experience and lack of funding. Students in our special electives have an opportunity to pursue their own interests in cancer in a setting responsive to these problems. Funding for our student assistantships for the past four years has fulfilled an important need. The Cancer Education Program of the University of Pennsylvania will continue to provide high quality research electives for our medical students.